Friday, September 2, 2016

Key Takeaway:The Iraqi Council of Representatives (CoR)
will likely dismiss Kurdish Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari if a no-confidence
vote occurs on September 6. New interpretations of the Iraqi Constitution
require only a simple majority to remove ministers, making his ouster more
likely. Zebari, a well-liked and effective minister, is being targeted to
undermine the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), Masoud Barzani, who
has centralized power within the Kurdish Regional Government at the expense of
rival parties - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Gorran. Kurdish
political parties lack the discipline to vote as a single voting bloc because
of infighting, which the Reform Front, the shadow political party led by former
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has exacerbated. Should the Kurdish Alliance in
fact collapse, allowing Zebari’s removal, the Kurds will lose their important
influence over Arab Iraq. For this reason, the PUK leaders are attempting to
instill party discipline and compel members to support Zebari, but they are
unlikely to succeed if the vote proceeds on September 6 as they
need more time to organize.

The Reform Front, an unofficial
opposition party in the CoR and support base for former Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki, has driven the campaign to dismiss Zebari. The Reform Front
similarly did so to dismiss Sunni Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi on August
25.

The Reform Front is targeting
ministers whose dismissal will have the simultaneous effect of undermining PM
Abadi’s key alliances and of collapsing major political blocs in the CoR that
rival the Reform Front.

A prominent ruling State of Law
Alliance (SLA) member and a member
of the Reform Front announced that the CoR would hold a no-confidence vote
against Zebari on September 6. The CoR has not officially confirmed that the
vote will occur, however.

If the no confidence vote occurs on September 6,
Zebari is unlikely to survive the vote because the Kurdistan Alliance has
fractured.

Intra-Kurdish tensions in the
KRG have spilled over into national politics.

Kurdish opposition politicians may
try to punish Masoud Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) by voting
against Zebari, a party member.

Some Kurdish politicians in the
PUK and Gorran will not adhere to their party leaders’ demands to support
Zebari for the benefit of the greater Kurdistan Alliance.

The PUK is working to consolidate
fractious intra-party differences and has called for a “decision center” to issue all
orders of the party on September 1. However, the multiple PUK officials have resisted this attempt as well,
revealing an internal PUK split that decreases the chance of Zebari’s survival.

A holiday recess may give the PUK and Gorran leaders
the time they need to organize their members to preserve Zebari.

Kurdish opposition leadership
recognizes that the Kurds will lose their influence in the Iraqi Government if
the Kurdistan Alliance fractures over Zebari’s dismissal.

The Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK), the second largest Kurdish party in the CoR, could ensure
Zebari’s survival. However, the PUK currently cannot enforce party discipline
to vote in favor of Zebari.

The PUK leaders are not likely
capable of turning the party members around in time for a September 6 vote.
However, the PUK could substantially improve party discipline if it delays the
vote until after recess.

Context

The Kurdistan Alliance is susceptible to fracture due
to intra-Kurdish tensions playing out in both the Kurdistan Regional and Iraq
national governments.

The Kurdistan Alliance has been
the framework under which all Kurdish parties in the CoR have formed a
consensus agenda. The parties are also the five largest parties in the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

A long-standing rivalry exists
between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by KRG President Masoud
Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talabani.

A political crisis in the KRG
between the KDP and Gorran, a prominent offshoot of the PUK, in October 2015
further polarized the positions of the KDP and PUK.

The KDP and PUK differed over
relations with Baghdad during a political boycott in May 2016. The Kurdistan Alliance
began to fracture when the PUK and Gorran sought to end the boycott for
financial concessions, deviating from the KDP’s intent to use the boycott a
springboard for an independence referendum.

Former PM Nouri al-Maliki continues to hit on the
fault lines between the Kurdish opposition parties and the KDP in order to
benefit his own support base.

Maliki has courted Kurdish
opposition blocs, including the PUK and Gorran, as possible allies to expand
his base of support in the CoR at a time when those parties are at odds with
the KDP.

Maliki has repeatedly praised the political alliance between the PUK and
Gorran, who merged on May 18, while the KDP heavily criticized the alliance saying it will “deepen the
internal problems” in the KRG.

Maliki visited the PUK and Gorran
in Suleimaniyah on July 18, where he met with senior PUK leaders and Gorran
leaders, reportedly asking the PUK and
Gorran to join the State of Law Alliance (SLA).

A senior PUK delegation
met with Maliki in Baghdad on August 23 to discuss issues between the KRG and
the federal government.

The Kurdistan Alliance faces dual pressure from some
members’ desire to undermine the KDP’s dominance and the leaders’ fear of
Maliki’s return to power.

The no-confidence vote is an
opportunity for Kurdish opposition parties to manifest their animosity towards
the KDP by ousting Zebari. The KDP reportedly requested that the all parties withdraw from the CoR
on August 27 in protest of the questioning of Zebari on August 25, but the
parties did not comply. The Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG) stated that “most
Kurdish parties” support Zebari’s dismissal, stating that the KDP was now “alone.”

However, several ranking
members of the PUK have advocated to follow party line and support Zebari,
likely in an effort to preclude taking action that could benefit Maliki’s
return to the premiership. Other PUK members have ignored the PUK’s party line
in favor of Gorran’s anti-KDP stance.

Complications

The dismissal of Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi on
August 25 lowered the threshold of support needed to dismiss a minister.

The CoR dismissed Obeidi on a simple majority vote, despite the Constitution stipulating an absolute majority, which
is a 165 CoR members. Conversely, a simple majority is the majority of those
attending the session after its reached quorum, also 165 people. This makes the
lowest simple majority possible 83 members if base quorum is reached.

Pro-Maliki supporters are
consistently within reach of that minimum, as they demonstrated when the CoR
dismissed Obeidi. A fractured Kurdistan Alliance, conversely, is unlikely to
garner additional support for Zebari.

Implications

Zebari’s dismissal could compromise the economic
stability of Iraq.

Zebari is an effective and
internationally well-liked finance minister who has secured financial benefits
that support the economic health of both the Iraqi Government and the KRG.

He has been instrumental in
successfully negotiating
the $5.3 billion standby loan with the International Monetary Fund
(IMF). Discussions are ongoing for fulfilling the conditions of the loan and
unlocking the potential for greater loan amounts.

Zebari likely played a critical
role in ensuring a new oil agreement between the KRG and Iraqi Government on
August 30 over oil production in Kirkuk Province.

It is unclear if these efforts
would survive if Zebari is removed from office.

The U.S. campaign for Mosul could suffer if the U.S.’s
primarily anti-ISIS partners, the KDP and Baghdad, no longer have an effective
relationship.

The bulk of anti-ISIS
operations in northern Iraq have occurred in KDP-governed terrain and alongside
KDP-led Peshmerga forces. KDP Peshmerga would be the primary Peshmerga force to
participate in Mosul operations.

The breakdown of relations
between the KDP and the Iraqi Government may complicate the current plan and
timeline for Mosul if the KDP rejects the oversight of the federal government,
or if the U.S. ability to work with the KDP is hampered by poor Baghdad-Arbil
relations.

Zebari’s dismissal would allow the Reform Front to
undercut its rivals in the pan-Shi’a National Alliance.

Maliki likely has targeted
Zebari in order to undermine his political rival, the Islamic Supreme Council
of Iraq (ISCI), which has opposed the Reform Front’s agenda.

The call for no-confidence in
Zebari also targets ISCI’s role as the primary mediator between the Shi’a and
Kurdish parties and may reduce ISCI’s relevance and ability to contest Maliki
in the government.

The Reform Front will continue
to try to oust key ministers in order to undermine Prime Minister Haidar
al-Abadi’s premiership. A Reform Front member stated on August 31 that it will pursue the removal
of Minister of Foreign Affairs Ibrahim al-Jaafari (National Reform Trend) and
Health Minister Adila Hammoud (Dawa in Iraq) next.

The rump Parliament, from which the Reform Front grew, had called for a no-confidence vote
against the PM.

The Reform Front and Maliki have
established their capacity to oust highly-respected and prominent ministers.
They have also cemented the precedent of a simple majority to dismiss a
minister.

The dismissal of Obeidi and
Zebari would eliminate two allies important to PM Abadi. The Reform Front may
continue to pick off ministers around PM Abadi, or its successful dismissal of
Zebari may prompt a call for the dismissal of PM Abadi.

Without the fundamental support
of the Kurdish and Sunni alliances, PM Abadi may have little support base to
ensure he survives the vote.

The KDP might leave the Iraqi Government and
accelerate efforts towards Kurdish independence should the CoR oust Zebari.

The KDP would likely see
participation in Baghdad as futile and fellow Kurdish parties as unacceptable
partners.

KRG President and KDP leader
Masoud Barzani might use the dissatisfaction with the Iraqi Government as a
springboard for holding an independence referendum.

KRG President and KDP leader
Masoud Barzani continues his rhetoric calling for Kurdish
independence. He called in June for Kurdish parties to convene and decide the “next steps,”
though no meeting appears to have occurred.

Barzani has set the U.S. 2016
presidential elections as a deadline
for holding a referendum.

The U.S. is attempting to
prevent the partition of the Iraqi state. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden
called President Barzani on August 31 and confirmed U.S. support for a
“unified, federal and democratic Iraq.”

An independent Iraqi Kurdistan
without the PUK-governed territories – primarily the oil-rich Kirkuk Province –
is not financially viable even in improved economic circumstances, a fact that
may dampen a risky move toward independence.

The fracturing of the Kurdistan Alliance would likely
deprive all Kurdish partiesof their
ability to influence the Iraqi Government in Baghdad and extract concessions
that benefit the KRG, ending an era of Iraqi politics. In the most dangerous
situation, the current Kurdish political fracture can break the unitary Iraqi
State.